


Give and Take (or: one size fits all)

by ConcerningConstellations



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angela "Mercy" Ziegler-centric, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Character Study, Cheesy, Dad Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Feelings, Fluff, Gen, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, I need a break from pain and suffering and angst, Implied Hana X Lucio, Jack being Jack, Nostalgia, OCD, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sharing Clothes, So here's this, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Timeline is obscure, Two Shot, chapter two features yee old pain and suffering, fears, headcanon that Angela manages to indirectly steal literally everyone's clothes, i guess, prompt, short and sweet, there's no plot its just feelings and fluff, trigger warning, two chapters that have very little to do with each other, you can take dad!S76 out of my cold dead hands, you should really not think about it too hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:10:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConcerningConstellations/pseuds/ConcerningConstellations
Summary: PROMPT:"Angela is really good at accidentally stealing everyone else's clothes."-Chapter 1: Angela wakes up with a jacket that is not hers draped over her shoulders.Chapter 2: Angela has anxiety. Hana has fears.It works out, in the end.





	1. Before You Burn Out

**Author's Note:**

> i finished this in, like, two hours on a bus ride home... this chapter is kinda meant to be short and sweet. 
> 
> fluff for your soul. for my friend Magpie's prompt: "Angela is really good at accidentally stealing everyone else's clothes."

It starts when she wakes up one Sunday afternoon — cheek sore from where it was pressed flat against the desk, fingers still wrapped limply around a pen, a cold cup of coffee not far from her face— to find Jack’s jacket hung over her shoulders. 

 

It takes her a long, drowsy moment to recognize the weight. At first, when her brain sparks to wakefulness and the thoughts tumble into place, she is more concerned about the paperwork piled before her, half-finished and slightly stained with last night’s dinner of apples and jam. From under heavy eyelids she stares out at the forms and notepads scattered haphazardly across her desk with a tired, annoyed sort of acceptance, not even trying to remember where she left off before unconsciousness claimed her.

 

When she finds it within herself to lift her head— grumbling sleepy German as her spine straightens after God-knows how many hours of laying stiff— the garment nearly slips to the floor. Confused, she reaches to slide it into her lap, holding it there between her hands, squinting down at the navy blue material as she fumbles quietly with her thoughts. Even without any prior knowledge, it was undoubtedly Morrison’s— from the way it appeared freshly pressed, robbed of every wrinkle and wisp of lint, to the gentle waft of clementine and cleaners.

 

She takes the fabric, rubs it thoughtfully between two fingers as the confusion blooms between her ribs. “What..?”

 

She finds her feet, half-heartedly fumbling through the documents and rubbing the glaze of sleep out from under her eyelids. Last night was a blur; one of those blurs she has learned to try and not remember too hard, because the effort would be wasted, and she’d be nothing but worse off. That’s what happened when you’re REM cycle was as sporadic has hers, she guessed. There was only so many plausible all-nighters in a single week; only so many days you could go without even peeling back the sheets of your own bed. You burn and you burn and you burn until you just burn out.

 

She does remember Jack, though. Remembers him somewhere above her, silhouetted against the incandescent lights of the lab, the grain of his fingers on her shoulder, the echo of his voice, words that reached her like waves resting and then retracting upon a shoreline. There and gone. There and gone. 

 

She leaves the room barefoot, barely able to walk in a straight line, his jacket rested neatly over one forearm. It’s not clear how much sleep she got, but her body seemed reluctant to relinquish itself to the new day. Her head throbbed. Her joints felt creaky and cold.

 

Coffee. That came first. 

 

The kitchen was mostly empty, save for Satya brewing tea and Sombra (not Olivia, not yet) tapping away at her laptop. Both glance up at her upon her entrance.

 

“She lives,” declared the latter, sparing her a limp wave by way of greeting before returning her attention to the computer. 

 

_“Guten_ morning,” she managed, making her way to the espresso machine and fixing herself a triple shot. The device hummed to life, the dark liquid falling into a mug reading _#1 MEDIC_ ,a Christmas gift from last year. 

 

“It’s two in the P.M., doc,” Sombra declared, not taking her eyes off the monitor. 

 

“Mhmm,” she replied without much thought, reaching for the sugar.

 

From her place by the stovetop, Satya crossed her arms— one dark and delicate, one white and redoubtable, wired to perfection— and spared her one of her softer looks. “That would be the salt, Dr. Ziegler,” she said, indicating to the white substance being poured into the cup of steaming coffee. 

 

Surprised, Angela brought the bottle up closer to her face, feeling inside her lab coat for her glasses. She slipped them over her nose, squinting as her vision returned. She couldn’t help the breathy malediction that made its way from somewhere deep in her chest, bringing a hand up to brush the bangs back from her forehead.

 

“Yes. Of course. Thank you,” she says without looking at the other woman, dumping the drink into the sink with a single regretful glance. Satya only nodded.

 

“Rough night?” Sombra asked, her long, painfully-pink nails still tip-taping away. 

 

Angela gave a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders, readjusting the jacket that hung from one arm before reaching for a new cup. “It was alright. I’m behind on paperwork, and late on a few medical reviews from last week’s job. Not to mention the new Valkyrie changes—“

 

“Angela.”

 

Jack stood like a sentinel in the doorway, sporting shorts and a thin tee that stuck to him in certain places, evidence that he had just finished his afternoon run. The dark and thickly-lensed glasses Angela had prescribed to him for his eyes reflected her own face, a drop of paleness against the otherwise uninterrupted black. His features— scared and weathered and familiar— were pulled into a look of tired determination, his voice laced with a soft sort of scolding, benign and borderline paternal. 

 

She started upon seeing him, suddenly finding it harder to keep the jacket pressed between her arm and chest. “Oh,” she said, the thoughts struggling to come together into words. They stuck together and bled into one another, doused in drowsiness, demanding caffeine. “Good afternoon, Jack.”

 

Jack did not say anything for a moment. He brought his wrist up, tilting his head downwards to look at the clock ticking away— analog, old school, obviously— and sighed. 

 

“Bed,” he said simply, moving towards her.

 

The word eluded her for a good moment. Her brows came together as one of his hands came to rest upon her shoulder, gently shepherding her away from the coffee machine. “I’m sorry?” she asked, neither cooperating nor resisting.

 

The older man just took his other hand and pressed a few calloused fingers carefully against her forehead, his lips formed into a single hard line. He grumbled quietly and Angela couldn’t help but scrunch her nose at the sudden contact. “Bed,” he said again in the same tone, unflinching, immutable.

 

She looked him. Her feet were moving, she noted, and the kitchen was shrinking behind her, Sombra casually bidding her goodnight in a distracted, smug sort of tone. 

 

“Jack,” she started, trying to get the words to sound professional, clipped and in control. “I just woke up.”

 

He sighed, still coaxing her forward. “Well. Congratulations on your impressive four hours of sleep, Ange. On your desk. Using your paperwork as a pillow.”

 

She blinked. Her frame felt unstable, almost top-heavy, and every step seemed to ebb away at her balance. “I have your jacket,” she said, smartly.

 

“Yes. You refused to get up,” he elaborated. “And when I went to carry you, you threatened me with an uncapped pen.”

 

She flushed, foggy memories frantically trying to arrange themselves between her ears. “Last night?”

 

“This morning, just before sunrise.” Jack punched in the key-code to her personal quarters, and her door slid silently open. “You can be very persistent when you’re delusional.”

 

She feels the defensiveness swell inside her, and though she means for her legs to stop and stand still, she continues to find herself being ushered into the room. “I wasn’t—“

 

“It was four forty-five. You didn’t notice when I came in. When I asked if you were feeling okay, you started lecturing me about heavy water in hydrogen bombs.” Jack left her side, moving to throw the pillows off her bed and open up the sheets, shut the blinds. “Plus, you were face down on your desk and starting to drool.”

 

“I do not _drool.”_

 

Jack ignored her. He had taken the glasses from her face, placed them carefully on her nightstand. She does not remember when. The jacket, once more, was over her shoulders. 

 

“Angela,” he starts again, rubbing his face with both hands, his shades sitting crooked across his nose, his white-blue irises peeking into view. “You need sleep. _Sleep_. Eight hours, in bed, lights off and your work in a separate room. You gotta stop starving yourself until you crash. ” Again, he touches her forehead, takes on more concerned expression. “It’s not healthy,” he adds.

 

“I’m not a child,” she retorts, beginning to feel agitated. She’s won a Noble Peace Prize at the age of nineteen, invented the first ever man-made regenerative cells, created wings out of light, starved off _death_ on more than a few occasions, for God’s sake. The last thing she needed was to be tucked—

 

She was in bed. 

 

Jack pulled the covers up to her chin, smoothing out their creases, ordering Athena to dim the lights. And he was still saying something, she knew, although the words were lost on her, reaching her only as they had before, there and gone, too fast for her to make any sense of. 

 

“M’not tired,” she tries to tell him, although she had the suspicion that her own words might have scrambled as they came out her mouth, dipped in German and missing a few syllables. The darkness seemed to weight down on her eyelids, the sudden warmth of the covers driving her to the conclusion that she was much colder than she had realized. The jacket’s collar is close to her face, and when she breathes in, she catches that waft of summertime, of freshness, of familiarity. The soft leather presses against the back of her neck, the skin of her shoulders. Her body goes heavy and loose and still; the bed seems to swallow her whole.

 

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the coffee could come later.

 

Jack is still there, still somewhere above her. He lingers, a pregnant pause where it’s just him and her and the quietness between them. Then he makes for the exit, his sneakers tapping on the tile. She can hear the smile on his lips when he talks, feeble, faint, but there. “Get some sleep, Angela.” 

 

She’s out before the door slides shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i bit different, i guess. again, it was meant to be short and sweet, as most of my prompts will probably end up being. if you like this, let me know! maybe i'll end up posting that other part. it's a little less fluffy and a little more angsty, but hey, it works with the prompt, so it's valid. 
> 
> if this wasn't your cup of tea, rest assured i'm working on "Gravity (just keep me where the light is)" as we speak :)
> 
> thanks for reading— if you enjoyed, let me know!
> 
> [EDIT: i got my shit together and made this a two-shot. it's more angsty, and longer, and more my style, honestly. check it out, if you'd like!]


	2. Prime Numbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela has anxiety. Hana has fears.  
> It works out, in the end.
> 
> -
> 
> OR: A very different take on the prompt: "Angela is really good at accidentally stealing everyone else's clothes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cleaned this up a bit, because, really, why not. i kinda like it. it's been a while since i've kinda liked my writing.
> 
> this has nothing to do with the last chapter. it's simply under "chapter 2" because it fits the prompt. you'll probably find it a lot more like my usual stuff. and, by "usual stuff," you know I mean A N G S T.
> 
> again, for my friend, Magpie. hope you guys enjoy :)
> 
> [reuploaded due to technical issues on my side, very sorry! my italics seemed to stop working. it should be better, now]

It starts on a late night in Paris, where the crowds got too much, where she needed the space and the quiet and the company of only herself.

 

She’s been better about this, really. When she was younger— after the bombings came and took everything from her overnight, a quick swipe of Death’s claws, a reminder of how temporary the things around her could become — the attacks were daily and devastating. They robbed her of any semblance of steadiness; her legs would shake, her breath shutter like the firing of a machine gun. The words would wrestle with one another in her chest, get clogged in her throat. Somedays her heart would pound so rapidly against her chest that she feared it would break against her ribs and rupture into pieces.

 

But that was _then_ , she remembers, and since then, she got better— or, at least, it got easier. Loud, sudden sounds didn’t send her spiraling anymore. She could stand close corridors if she needed to. When things got too much— the lights too bright, the space too tight, the oxygen too sparse— she would count her prime numbers backward from three hundred by twos, train her eyes on something she knew would not disappear: the horizon, the little cracks of her clinic’s walls.

 

She was better. She was. But there were days she was reminded that _better_ simply did not mean _all better_ , and those were the days she tended to stay away for a little while.

 

Sadly, the opportunity to lock herself in her lab and roost within her work lied about four-thousand miles out of her reach.

 

Back in the day, she had been to Paris a few times; delivered a handful of speeches about nanobiotics to a crowd of hundreds, attended a rally to promote Overwatch’s expansion, been a first-responder when a bomb went off near the Eiffel Tower, injuring countless. Never for pleasure, though. She’s never had the time, and if she was being honest with herself, probably never would.

 

Paris was always the same. Always busy busy busy and booming with busloads of tourist and the barking of butchered English from the salespeople on the street, offering you plastic umbrellas and overpriced trinkets that would surely fall apart soon after you touched them. It was all was noise and exhaust fumes and people packed together, pressed close enough so it felt as if you were breathing in the air someone just released from their own lungs, stale and lukewarm. It made her want to be sick.

 

But she came anyways, because she’s a doctor, a medic, a healer, and when Gabriel said he needed a small squad to accompany him on a mission here, she was one of the first to volunteer.

 

The job went well. It was a quiet, under-the-radar sort of thing, which Angela always appreciated. The bullets stayed in Jesse’s six-shooter and her Caduceus Staff wasn’t strictly needed. They were in and out within four hours, ready to board a hovercraft home the next morning. Quick. Clean. Simple. Unlike what came after.

 

Her hands started to shake on the walk back to their hotel. It was the time of day where neither the sun nor stars were in the sky, a break of twilight that was just dark enough to trigger the lampposts on. People were everywhere. None seemed to really recognize them— a good pair of sunglasses and a trench coat could work wonders, Reyes had taught her— but it was a double-sided sword. Shoulders slammed against her own, the roar of French and English and Spanish and Italian pushing up against her ears, the smell of sweat and sour breath with no clean air between them. She felt herself fading, the tremors tearing up her spine, her chest going all heavy and tight and painful.

 

It was swelling somewhere inside her, some beast waking from hibernation, prepared to raise hell after so long of lying dormant. She tries to count, to anchor herself, but the horizon was gone, hidden under bobbing heads and tour-guide hats, and it was all she could do to keep up with the others amongst the chaos.

 

She made it, of course. The lobby of the hotel was much more spacious than the streets, draped in white marble and a clean pale floor. As Amélie checked them in, Angela found herself leaning on the edge of the concierge desk, head bowed gently, forcing the breath to enter and leave between her teeth. Despite the moment of respite, she did not relax. It was still there, the worrying weight still eating away at her resolve, reaching up into her throat, her chest, her lungs. She could feel it, in a sickening, familiar sort of fashion. Feel it working its way up from her feet, to her knees, to her lungs and her heart and her throat, turning everything cold and shaky and weak.

 

She didn’t stand still. She drummed her fingers against the smooth, cold surface of the desk, shifted her feet below her and ignored the look Jesse sent her way. They wouldn’t see her tremble. She refused.

 

And that’s how it started, really: with her sitting on the balcony off her own private room, feeling the night breeze tousle her undone hair, fending off the last of it all. It was quieter, here. The dull roar of the crowds lied somewhere far below her, cushioned by the wind and the faint sound of music, the crowing of gulls. It takes hours for the adrenaline to leave her— the threat of a full-fledged attack to fade— so she sat idle on a cheap lawn chair, counted her numbers, focused on her breathing.

 

 _It’s fine_ , she told herself with a sort of scolding urgency. _You’re fine. You’re better, now._

 

Someone knocked on the sliding glass door that divided her room from the balcony. The vague shape of a figure stood behind the planes of fogged glass, a flash of dark hair, a smudge of red lipstick and neon-pink mittens. With one mighty tug of the handle, Hana Song came to join her among the city lights.

 

“Hey, Angela. You got a sec?” she asked, her voice a stark contrast to the world around them, loud and young and apathetic towards how most others seemed to be winding down.

 

Angela, who was both remarkably jet-lagged and practically buzzing with unwanted adrenaline, struggled to rally at the sudden intrusion. She forced her spine to righten, managed to shape her lips into what she hoped was some kind of smile. The blanket she had brought from inside loosened around her shoulders as she sat up.

 

“Hana. I— yes, of course. Are you alright? How did you get in?” Her own voice feels weak, something dry and shriveled. She puts an astounding amount of effort into making sure the words remain level. Thankfully, Hana— who, upon closer inspection, seemed rather riled up— didn’t seem to notice a thing.

 

“Door’s unlocked, doc. I knocked, but you didn’t answer. Am I, like, intruding, or..?”

 

Angela waves at the words, forcing her tone into something tame and reassuring. “It’s okay. What’s wrong? You’re not hurt, are you?”

 

She didn’t exactly run through her typical post-mission medicals on account of the rather mundane nature of the job, and the fact that it took her two entire minutes to steady her hands enough to unlock her room’s door. A splinter of guilt digs its what between her ribs, twist painfully at her heart.

 

 _Some doctor you are_ , a part of her mocks. She cannot find the ammunition nor energy to fire back.

 

“No, no. Not really, anyways,” Hana tells her, zipping up her oversized hoodie with colors so bright they hurt to look at. “I just— gah.” She motions dispassionately with one hand, leans against the railing. “It’s kind of stupid. I mean, we can talk about it later, if you want.”

 

Angela frowns. Her mind is moving quickly, devouring the words, running them over piece by piece. The response is automatic, default. “Nonsense. Tell me, what’s going on?”

 

Hana holds her stare for a moment, bring her arms to weave together and cross against her chest. She looks strange— a mix of uncertainty and what Angela suspected to be embarrassment, an emotion that’s never much suited the young, unapologetically boisterous recruit.

 

“It’s dumb,” she says, “But I— it’s, ah…”

 

Angela waits, tries to remember where she had been before she lost count. _One-hundred ninety-nine, one-hundred ninety-three…_

 

“Can you give me something for nightmares?” Hana asks in a voice much too quiet.

 

It catches her so much by surprise that, for a moment, she forgets about her own anxiety, abandons her pursuit of pushing the panic out from her bloodstream. Something new blooms in her chest, the familiar pang of concern flooding her until it’s all she could focus on. Her lips part and then purse, brows bending closer.

 

“I…” she starts, not knowing where to go, “What do you mean?”

 

Hana takes a breath, blows the bangs out of her face. The way she stands makes Angela nervous, all tight and closed-off, backlit by hotel lights and the yellow glow of distant streetlamps, obviously uncomfortable. Her eyes are angled down towards the cement beneath her feet, and they stay there as she answers.

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

It’s all calloused and quiet, barely rising above the white noise all around them. She looks up, stares her straight in the eye. “Can’t make it through most nights without— you know.”

 

She knows.

 

(It’s always the same for her; always gunfire and people pumped with bullets and body parts attached to no body and blood— so much _blood_ — all the way to her ankles. It’s always her parents calling her name, Jack before his blindness, Gabriel before she broke him).

 

“How bad are they?” Angela asks, reaching for a clipboard she forgets isn’t there. Her hands end up folded together atop her lap, squeezing each other until the knuckles go white.

 

Hana pauses, rolling something under the toe of her shoe. “I was with Lucio last night, just before we left. I fell asleep next to him, and I— _God_ , I just—“ She stops herself, tilts her head back, focuses on the wall just behind Angela. She gives a little laugh, although there’s no humor in it. “I woke up screaming. I couldn’t stop myself. I scared him half to death, you know, and he wanted to, like, _talk_ about it, but I…”

 

Angela waits for her to finish, but the silence stretches on. She clears her throat, trying to sound positive. “It’s perfectly normal, all things considered. There’s nothing wrong with you, Hana, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

“I know.” She doesn’t sound satisfied. “But isn’t there, like… medication? I just— I’m sick of it, Ange. I’m sick of seeing everything all over, everything I’m trying to let go of. It’s starting to mess with me bad.”

 

It’s coming back to her, slow but steady, a tug of tightness at her chest, the sudden heat in her palms.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she _is_ , really. “It… it doesn’t work like that. There are pills to help you get to sleep, many of which I don’t recommend, but nightmares…” She just shakes her head, hating the words. “There are some things we don’t get to let go of.”

 

Hana just stands there, arms crossed. She nods, as if she didn’t trust her words.

 

“It gets easier,” Angela tells her, because it’s all she knows how to say, all she’s ever told herself.

 

Hana laughs, and it’s just as harrowed, just as hollow. “No. No, it doesn’t. Nothing gets easier. Not even a little.” She kicks at something small— a piece of cobblestone, maybe— and sends it between the bars of the railing. Her face hardens, then melts. “I like him a lot, Ange.”

 

“Lucio.” It’s hardly a question.

 

“Yeah. And I get that, like, honesty is always the right answer in a relationship, but… there are things that I can’t get into, yet. And I can’t imagine ever being ready to talk about… those things. Not even with him. And it scares the hell out of me, Angela— to know there are parts of myself that not even I can— can _deal with_.”

 

Angela nods. It’s growing, the anxiety working its way through her veins, darkening the edges of her vision. She pushes it away— _Gottverdammt_ , she can’t do this now— and tries to find the silver lining, tries to make it all better.

 

“It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to not be ready to— to talk about those things. You’re hardly twenty years old, Hana. It’s okay.”

 

“What if he doesn’t want me, though?” Hana starts to pace, although it’s a challenge considering how cramped the balcony is. “Would you even blame him? I mean, it was bad, Ange. I didn’t even recognize who he was for the first couple moments after I came out of it. I screamed at him in Korean for a solid twenty seconds; I kicked him off the freaking couch.” She hides her face in her hands, groans long and loud. Angela wants to reach out and hold her, keep her steady, but she feels the tremors starting up her spine and decides against it.

 

“Are we thinking about the same Lucio? You know he’d never judge you too harshly over something like that. He’s been through his own stuff. We all have.”

 

Hana huffs, rubbing her eyes. “Still not great for the ego, man.”

 

“Perhaps. But ego grows back. What matters is that Lucio cares about you, Hana. It’s not exactly a secret. And, in my professional opinion, I don’t think a few nightmares are going to drive him away.”

 

The recruit fixes her with a look between the gaps of her fingers, bites her bottom lip. The words are careful, wrapped in delicate hopefulness, a flash of relief. “…You think?”

 

She shakes her head, manages another smile— one that feels a little more real. “Of course.”

 

Hana deflates a little after that, stills her legs and plants her feet. Her hands drop back to her side, and she lets out a deep breath, one that just barely fogs in the frigid night air. She seems lighter. For a moment, Angela does, too.

 

“Thanks. I’m— sorry to barge in here. I know it’s kinda late.”

 

She shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. My door is always open. If it gets too much, don’t hesitate to come see me, understand? I could teach you some breathing routines, exercises to keep your mind occupied. They’re not difficult.”

 

When Hana laughs this last time, it’s actually a pleasant sound; one that pushes back the rising tension in Angela’s stomach, smoothes out the lines between her brows. “I didn't know you worked in consoling, doc.” Then she takes a moment to look at her— a longer look, one that makes it seem as if she’s really searching for something— and tilts her head. “What about you? Seem a little pale. Feeling alright?”

 

Angela shakes her head, quickly waving away the question. “Oh, yes. Don’t worry about me. Just a bit cold.”

 

Hana frowns, obviously displeased. “You should go inside. Your hands’re shivering, see?”

 

Panic flashes inside her, a violent, cringing sensation that she just barely manages to shake off. She rubs her hands together to make them appear steady. “I will in a bit. I like this time of night, that’s all.” Her eyes shift past Hana, out towards the world of blue-greys and blacks, the tall buildings with glowing windows, the quiet lull of half-empty streets. It’s not exactly a lie.

 

The younger girl seems hesitant, but eventually shrugs it off. “If you say so. Here, you can hang onto these. Wouldn’t want you catching a cold or anything.” And with that she sheds her hot-pink mittens— revealing equally pink painted nails— and hands them down to the doctor, patting them onto her lap. “They’re my favorite pair, so go easy on ‘em, okay?” She shoots her a joking wink, and now it’s Angela’s turn to laugh.

 

“That’s very kind of you,” she says, slipping the soft material over her hands. In a brief, unexpected flash of nostalgia, texture takes her back to her years of college, back to late-night trips to the Laundromat where she used to dig her hands into her freshly-dried clothes and soak up the heat, the smell of softeners and detergent. The warmness is surprisingly steadying— nothing like her usual latex gloves, all cold and thin and membrane-like. She relishes in the feeling. “Thanks.”

 

Hana smiles, sends her a lazy salute. “Thank _you_. I’m glad you came on this trip. Think I would have exploded if I didn’t talk to anyone about this, and Gabriel isn’t exactly the _share your feelings_ kinda guy, so… yeah. Thanks.”

 

Angela feels a new sense of warmth inside of her— one, she suspects, that has very little to do with the gloves.

 

“It’s my pleasure.”

 

Then Hana disappears back through the sliding glass door, leaving Angela alone once more with the nighttime, tugging her blanket a little closer. When she looks back out over the railing, the colors of the city seem brighter; a little more alive. She can piece apart the sounds, now— hear an accordion from inside a café with open doors, the faint clinking of glasses, a motorcycle racing down a narrow alley, parting the puddles. The world seems to shift, reorient itself.

 

It’s still there, she knows; still lurking somewhere in the cage of her ribs, the hollow of her lungs, perfectly capable of dismantling her within mere minutes. But, out of what was either strength or stupidity, she found it becoming easier to ignore; a white noise you forget is even there, given enough time.

 

She breathes in deeply, picking up the scent of sourdough and wine, gasoline and rainwater. The mittens wrapped around her fingers are a size too small, but she finds herself not minding so much. It feels like holding hands, she thinks, bemused. A constant pressure, a sort of reassurance, something real and tangible to help ride out the aftershocks.

 

Lifting her head further, she finds the horizon, a bumpy line of buildings against the star-speckled sky.

 

Paris, she decided, wasn’t all that bad.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't touch me i'm fragile.
> 
> hope you guys enjoyed! drop me a comment if you did. the next thing that will be updated, most likely, is Gravity (le Kid!Angela famfic) in a few weeks.
> 
> you're all wonderful. thanks for all the support.


End file.
